Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is considering nominating Oklahoma oil and gas mogul Harold Hamm as energy secretary if elected to the White House on November 8, according to four sources close to Trump's campaign.

World leaders may have committed to ambitious climate targets in Paris at the weekend, but that in small-town America, all that solar hocus pocus is still viewed with a healthy dose of slack-jawed cynicism.

A drop in energy use by Australians has slashed billions of dollars from energy bills since 2010, but those savings are threatened by policies by the Abbott government and some conservative state governments, a report by The Australia Institute finds.

​A major pilot project by Europe's largest power network operator to integrate power from rooftop solar panels into the grid has shown that battery storage of renewable energy is not yet economically viable in Europe.

The eclipse due to bring most of Europe into deep shadows on Friday morning will put an unprecedented strain on the region's electricity grid, turning off thousands of solar panels essential to power supply and rocking electricity markets.
The moon will cross in front of the sun, blocking about 80 per cent of its light across Europe from 8 am to 11 am London time. In Germany, the eclipse will briefly turn off thousands of panels, which provide about 40 per cent of the nation's power on the most sunny days.

Australia’s small-scale solar energy industry held steady in 2014 although uncertainty about the Abbott government’s support for renewable energy and rising costs for imported panels as the dollar wilts are casting a cloud over the sector.